When a rogue rescue operation at a Chinese prison goes bad, CIA agent Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) is arrested and sentenced to death. With the clock running out, retiring agent Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), who recruited Bishop, tries to convince his superiors, who’ve decided to leave the younger agent to his fate, to stop Bishop’s execution and bring him home.

CRITIQUE

Spy Game is a fairly entertaining mess. I know of no better way to describe it. Its stars are very good and director Tony Scott shoots the hell out of it (this was the last movie Scott made in what amounts to the middle passage of his career; the beyond-hyperactive camerawork and acid-trip stylistics only crop up in a few brief shots), but Michael Frost Becker and David Arata’s script has an incredibly annoying structure and a final that act offers a huge helping of you-gotta-be-kidding-me disappointment.

Let’s start with the structure. The movie begins with the blown op and Bishop’s capture. The story then moves to CIA headquarters, where Muir sits down with his superiors and begins recounting his relationship with Bishop, flashing back to their first meeting in Vietnam (the body of the movie takes place in 1991) and then segueing into ops in both Berlin and Beirut.

Despite the fact that the flashbacks themselves are the most interesting sections of the movie (the actual spy stuff is nicely handled), this repetition gets to be a bit much at times. The movie also becomes more preposterous as it edges closer to the climax, piling up the contrivances and coincidences. Muir’s actions during the finale (the details of which are glossed over in hopes of camouflaging just how silly they are) are ridiculously preposterous.

Even worse, you have to wonder why Bishop spent so much time sitting on his ass. See, the script dances around a key piece of information, one which should have been clear to Muir from the very beginning; there’s no way to explain why he doesn’t immediately realize what Bishop was up to on China, therefore there’s no way to explain why he wastes time regaling his coworkers with tales from his past while he friend and protégé waits to meet the firing squad.

I wonder if perhaps the involvement of the stars compromised the movie. There’s no way both Redford and Pitt signed on without making a few demands story-wise, so we could be dealing with a case of two very popular actors coming in and forcing the material to be taken in directions to their liking (remember what happened when Pitt became attached to The Devil’s Own?).

Both Muir and Bishop come off looking good at story’s end, with the movie closing on far too neat and tidy a note. What Spy Game needed was the input of someone who knew exactly where to take the story and characters--someone who could offer a guiding or definitive vision, not the wandering, meandering, let’s-do-this-and-see-where-it-takes-attitude that so often seems to be on display; star power and a director suited to the material can get you so far.

Given that this movie is largely given over to scenes of a guy telling a story, it’s a little strange that the story itself is the movie’s biggest weakness.

THE VIDEO

This 2.35:1/1080p transfer found on this 50GB disc--which has been encoded with VC-1--looks very nice. Dan Mindel’s cinematography is less stylized than what you’ll find in more recent Tony Scott movies, although contrast is a little hot and color saturation is pushed past the norm; the most extreme example of stylization comes during the Vietnam flashback, which features a golden look that borders on monochromatic.

Blacks hold solid throughout, and the image is sharp and detailed. Unfortunately, there’s more than a little moiré on display; the facades of buildings in the Hong Kong and D.C./Virginia exteriors have a tendency to waver and jitter during pans. (I compared this transfer to that of the HD DVD released a few years ago and found them to be identical.)

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is aces all the way around. Interiors have an atmospheric, completely convincing quality; the sound design opens up in exteriors, with a large, immersive soundfield.

The actions scenes (there aren’t as many as you might expect from this sort of movie) deliver in terms in discrete effects and mayhem; the Vietnam sequence, with its thrumming helicopters, is a standout. Dialogue remains clear throughout. The low end has a very healthy presence, in both the effects and Harry Gregson-Williams’s score.

French and Spanish DTS 5.1 tracks are also included. English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

As was the case with the standard-def and HD DVD releases, you get two commentary tracks here. The first is by director Tony Scott, the second by producers Douglas Wick and Marc Abraham. Scott’s is by far the more interesting; much like his brother, Scott covers practically every aspect of the production and also runs off on any tangent that pops into his head. Wick and Abraham’s contributions prove to be more than a little redundant, although if nuts-and-bolts production minutia is your thing, you’ll be satisfied by their comments.

Clandestine Ops is a branching feature that allows access to a series of short behind-the-scenes featurettes. Activate this feature and an icon will appear whenever one of the featurettes is available; choose to view it and you’ll be branched out of the movie and then returned once the featurette is over.

A Script-to-Storyboard featurette (3 minutes, standard definition) offers Scott (decked out in his ever-present pink cap and clutching a stogie) a chance to expound on his approach to storyboarding (which, not surprisingly, is also quite similar to his brother’s).

Also included are nine deleted/alternate scenes (20 minutes total, standard definition), most of which are short character bits or extended versions of scenes that made the final cut. Scott provides optional commentary for these scenes.

Requirements for CIA Acceptance is a text-based feature that provides info on what it takes to become a CIA operative.

My Scenes, Universal’s standard bookmarking feature, is also included.

The disc is also BD-Live enabled.

FINAL THOUGHT

It’s entertaining enough, but unfortunately the whole is never greater than the sum of its parts.